This invention relates to apparatus in which the brain waves of a living body are detected and processed for the purpose of diagnosing living body information such as dysfunction of the brain itself, the kidney, the liver, etc.
There has been employed heretofore a method of diagnosing epilepsy, a brain injury resulting from a traffic accident, encephaloma, etc. on the basis of the waveforms of electrical brain-wave signals recorded on a recording paper. Further, an attempt has been made heretofore to find a correlation between the recorded waveforms of the brain waves and other living body informaton. Also an attempt has been made to diagnose a pathological condition by processing the electrical brain-wave signals. However, there has not yet been put to practical use, a satisfactory method of providing correct diagnostic information. Especially in the past, it has been contemplated to detect abnormalities separately appearing in the waveform of the brain-wave signal, or differences between brain waves detected from a plurality of points on the head. Accordingly, abnormalities in the brain waves cannot be detected when appearing steadily.
For detecting to what extent dialysis by an artificial kidney has proceeded, there has been proposed a method of measuring the weight of a patient subjected to the dialysis, based on the fact that his weight decreases as toxins are eliminated by the dialysis from his body. With this method, however, it is necessary to accurately check the weight of the patient in his normal conditions, but the detection of an absolute value of his weight is difficult because the weight in normal conditions differs before and after urination, for instance, and accordingly it is impossible to correctly detect completion of the dialysis. Further, if the dialysis is not carried out correctly, water in the blood is also eliminated from the body, also making it difficult to correctly detect completion of the dialysis.
Another method that has heretofore been employed is to measure the amounts of, for example, urea, creatinine, uric acid or the like in the blood of a patient before and after dialysis and to determine to what extent the patient should be subjected to dialysis on the basis of the data and the time for the previous dialysis. However, since preparation of such data is time-consuming, it is impossible to check the dialyzing condition during dialysis. Consequently, the time for dialysis is assumed from data obtained for each dialysis previously effected, so that completion of the dialysis cannot be detected in the case where the condition of the patient changes.
An object of this invention is to provide a living body information diagnosing apparatus which enables the detection of steady abnormalities appearing in the waveform of a brain-wave signal, thereby to ensure a correct diagnosis of living body information.
Another object of this invention is to provide a living body information diagnosing apparatus with which it is possible to detect not only unsteady but also steady abnormalities from variations in the waveform of a brain-wave signal, thereby to enable diagnosing the condition of a disease as well as identifying a disease.
Another object of this invention is to provide a living body information diagnosing apparatus with which it is possible to continuously detect the progress of dialysis by an artificial kidney and to check whether or not dialysis is required for the treatment of a patient.
Still another object of this invention is to provide a living body information diagnosing apparatus with which it is possible to diagnose encephalitis from hepatitis.